Scientists from Stanford University have proved Einstien’s theory and are using the spacetime warp created by a gigantic black hole as a lens. This can finally tell us what is behind a black hole. Read to know what they found out.
Einstein’s theory of relativity and black holes
For a long time, the prediction of bending space and time with massive black holes was just confined to Einstein’s general theory of relativity. This is mainly because we thought light cannot pass through black holes. However, scientists studying the theory found a way to use it and see what lurks behind it. Moreover, black holes themselves were considered to be a nonexistent abnormality. But NASA’s Event Horizon Telescope disproved it after capturing the first black hole images on April 10, 2019.
But, what are these black holes? It is a place in space where gravity pulls strongly that even light cannot get out of it. They are invisible and can only be observed indirectly depending on how light, matter and energy behave around one. The milky way galaxy alone is home to millions of black holes. It can only be visualized using extremely powerful telescopes such as the Hubble telescope.
More on Standford research and how they used a black hole as a lens
A team of researchers from the Stanford university closely studied a massive black hole in the center of the I Zwicky 1 galaxy. The galaxy is 800 million light-years away from earth. They detected intriguing X-Ray patterns which were glowing reflections coming from behind the black hole. The findings from the research are published in Nature and dubbed to be Einstein’s general theory of relativity in action.
“Any light that goes into the black hole doesn’t come out, so we shouldn’t be able to see anything that’s behind it. The reason we can see that is that black hole is warping space, bending light, and twisting magnetic fields around itself,” said Dan Wilkins. Wilkins is an astrophysics at Stanford University and one of the authors of the study. “I’ve been building theoretical predictions of how these echoes appear to us for a few years. I’d already seen them in the theory I’ve been developing, so once I saw them in the telescope observations, I could figure out the connection,” he added.